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P3D v4 Orbx libraries circumventing ACM?

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1,486
Country
unitedstates
I have a customer who purchased simwestSOCAL ( which has some custom tree groupings based on default trees), and also has installed many Orbx airports, sceneries, and the like and the Orbx Libraries. He told me that he was missing all trees in my product.

During our several months of beta testing were had discovered this too but if the customer used the Orbx Central Insertion Point option this would normally correct the issue. So I tried it on my own system. Installed Orbx Central, one airport outside my product area and added the Orbx Libraries. Sure enough I could recreate the issue. I then changed insertion point in Orbx Central but it did not work.

Keep in mind that ACM did update the AutogensDescriptions.spb file correctly but it was if is was just ignored. Digging in deeper, looked into the Orbx's Libraries add-on.xml and see they run a script with the following entry:

<AddOn.Component>
<Category>Autogen</Category>
<Path>ORBX\Scripts\custom.gb_base</Path>
</AddOn.Component>

In that custom.gb_base folder are vegetation .dds files so I am thinking it is over-riding the AutogensDescriptions.spb file? If I remove the entry above, vegetation appears in both mine and orbx's scenery. I could detect a few tree types now missing in the orbx location.

So I guess my question is can ACM compensate for this? Actually I am surprised I am not hearing plenty of complaints if this was happening across the board. So maybe I have not fully investigated properly. There appears to have two other add-on insertions but I cannot find how to move them yet, at least not through Orbx Central.

A long description, I know so let me just ask if anyone else or you Arno come across a situation similar?

Many thanks,
 

arno

Administrator
Staff member
FSDevConf team
Resource contributor
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32,400
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netherlands
Hi,

I am not familiar with the details how Orbx installs their sceneries (I hardly use any addons myself). But do you see any definitions in the autogen folder that is mentioned in the add-on,xml file? Just textures should not influence the autogen definitions.

My impression is that if the add-on.xml file contains an autogen definition than P3D will merge them with the default ones while running the simulator. So for these ACM would not have to do anything anymore.
 
Messages
1,486
Country
unitedstates
Here's was testing has revealed so far. With Orbx Central's latest version one can install inside the root folder of the flightsim platform (using P3Dv4 as an example), or one can now choose to have folders outside the root folder at the User's choosing for a location to install. At it's basic understanding, if one chooses to have Orbx Libraries outside the root folder ACM will not work. By not work, I mean the the results are custom vegetation or custom groupings will not show. ACM may still be processing correctly (need to verify). If a simmer chooses to have the Orbx Libraries in the root folder the custom vegetation does appear.

I plan more testing to see if one can still install Orbx sceneries and airports outside the root folder yet still have custom vegetation appear so long as the libraries remain in root folder.
 
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